2015 RULES: Suggested Topics

[bigphil44]

I think its time to stop using Madden for player ratings and updates and move on to a more in-depth and detailed ratings system. I'm tired of seeing player updates given weekly by someone (Donny Moore; the madden ratings czar) who doesn't even watch nor evaluate the players from a week to week basis. I don't think its a good idea to keep using his rating evaluations and updates especially since the ratings for the Oline and Dline are very important in Fangm and for the simple fact that he doesn't even watch the games.

I have a couple of different ideas that I'll toss around a little later today but I wanted to get a little feedback from everybody to see if anyone else feels the same way. I feel that this is a very important and crucial topic that needs to be addressed and discussed since the ratings are a very important part of our game.

[Goodell]

I would like the option in our "restructures" to make it front loaded or back loaded. Only two per team per year, but you can go either way with the money.


I don't think we're ready for front loaded contract offers though, but that could be a discussion too.

Don't we already have the option to have a front loaded contract offer?

Saw your message but haven't dug into the script yet to remind myself (and with free agency off couldn't go see live). I know there's a checkbox for backloaded. I don't believe it factors back-loaded or not into the bid score and treats offers just based upon the figures to avoid over-complicating that.

For more front-loaded options (whether for bidding or contract restructures) I think we'd want to first make sure what's happening in reality in those regards, as our aim here is to give our GMs options somewhat realistic to what real GMs have to manage the cap.

Searching on NFL front loaded contracts, you definitely get results on front-loaded contracts signed. Makes sense that we'd have that option too, and I can look into that more before free agency. Might have been a complicated issue to sort through in the past as to how that impact bid scores or deciding which is more valuable than another, etc. to still think about.

I don't know if I've seen an NFL example of a team restructuring a player's contract to make it more front-loaded. It seems like it's always the opposite restructuring for cap relief. I tried to search on that and wasn't coming up with anything yet. If it doesn't happen in reality, to make that an option here feels more fake to me and the further away from real GM option conditions further away from the purpose for founding the league. I'm not opposed to discussion on that or seeing how most feel, though, and we could poll on that after more research. If there are examples of that in reality actually happening, that would change my thoughts on that completely if that's a tool NFL teams are using in reality to build rosters and manage their cap. If it's happening in reality, I would have no problem to adding that option here.

[Goodell]

I think its time to stop using Madden for player ratings and updates and move on to a more in-depth and detailed ratings system. I'm tired of seeing player updates given weekly by someone (Donny Moore; the madden ratings czar) who doesn't even watch nor evaluate the players from a week to week basis. I don't think its a good idea to keep using his rating evaluations and updates especially since the ratings for the Oline and Dline are very important in Fangm and for the simple fact that he doesn't even watch the games.

I have a couple of different ideas that I'll toss around a little later today but I wanted to get a little feedback from everybody to see if anyone else feels the same way. I feel that this is a very important and crucial topic that needs to be addressed and discussed since the ratings are a very important part of our game.

Welcome the suggestions. That's come up before with some suggestions for high profile services but ones that were PAID services and not interested in us publishing their paid content rankings for free. Approached some of them in the past and no interest from them in something like that. Also raises legal problems if we're not just using information in the public domain freely available to anyone, without some kind of agreement (which if they wanted would probably be very costly to use their premium services).

When I started this originally, my intent was to eventually get to my own grading system or some kind of independent source. I'd even setup some domains in that regard. That's a bigger project than I'm able to tackle at the moment probably and much easier to utilize publicly available information for our friendly not-for-profit purposes, but I'm definitely interested in exploring other options there (if there are any that make sense).

[Onyxgem]

I think its time to stop using Madden for player ratings and updates and move on to a more in-depth and detailed ratings system. I'm tired of seeing player updates given weekly by someone (Donny Moore; the madden ratings czar) who doesn't even watch nor evaluate the players from a week to week basis. I don't think its a good idea to keep using his rating evaluations and updates especially since the ratings for the Oline and Dline are very important in Fangm and for the simple fact that he doesn't even watch the games.

I have a couple of different ideas that I'll toss around a little later today but I wanted to get a little feedback from everybody to see if anyone else feels the same way. I feel that this is a very important and crucial topic that needs to be addressed and discussed since the ratings are a very important part of our game.

As long as it does not require a ton of work from the Commish

[bigphil44]

I think its time to stop using Madden for player ratings and updates and move on to a more in-depth and detailed ratings system. I'm tired of seeing player updates given weekly by someone (Donny Moore; the madden ratings czar) who doesn't even watch nor evaluate the players from a week to week basis. I don't think its a good idea to keep using his rating evaluations and updates especially since the ratings for the Oline and Dline are very important in Fangm and for the simple fact that he doesn't even watch the games.

I have a couple of different ideas that I'll toss around a little later today but I wanted to get a little feedback from everybody to see if anyone else feels the same way. I feel that this is a very important and crucial topic that needs to be addressed and discussed since the ratings are a very important part of our game.

Welcome the suggestions. That's come up before with some suggestions for high profile services but ones that were PAID services and not interested in us publishing their paid content rankings for free. Approached some of them in the past and no interest from them in something like that. Also raises legal problems if we're not just using information in the public domain freely available to anyone, without some kind of agreement (which if they wanted would probably be very costly to use their premium services).

When I started this originally, my intent was to eventually get to my own grading system or some kind of independent source. I'd even setup some domains in that regard. That's a bigger project than I'm able to tackle at the moment probably and much easier to utilize publicly available information for our friendly not-for-profit purposes, but I'm definitely interested in exploring other options there (if there are any that make sense).

What I was thinking that we could do is form an 8 person committee (with a couple of alternates) in charge of scouting and evaluating 4 teams each ( by each division for example) and have this committee use whatever means they deem necessary to evaluate all the players on the teams they are assigned. They could do this by watching the actual games of those particular teams, signing up for pro football focus weekly scouting reports, watching the All-22 coaches film and etc...Then they would send in their updated roster grades each week to the commissioner who in turn would just update the spreadsheet that we got from the Madden offseason/preseason roster updates with rookie grades. This way all we're using from madden is the initial roster update and a spreadsheet with all the players on it. We only need to evaluate and update the overall player grade whether said player went up, down or stayed the same.

Basically we could use our own guys to evaluate the players grades weekly. We have some very intelligent and knowledgeable players in fangm that could very easily diagnose and evaluate the teams they are assigned and make a much more accurate analysis of a players performance and grade from week to week. I know that between all 3 leagues we can find 8 guys (maybe a couple more for alternates) willing to do this to further help the league.

[Ulrich82]

I'm certainly not married to Madden grades, but I don't see any workable alternative.

Having a committee of graders with one person each responsible for certain teams' grades would lead to way too much variation based on who is doing the grading. PFF uses volunteer graders to help them come up with their grades, but these people get some training and the site uses several graders to attempt to average out good/bad graders and possible mistakes. There is just no way to standardize this across a handful of people. I also think that, even though we have plenty of smart people here who love football, scouting/grading is a very particular skill that takes a lot of practice. I just don't think we can expect people to do a good job of this.

Madden grades have their faults. I think the biggest issues are that the grades are tied into game balance (so changes tend to be conservative and I think the non-skill positions always tend to get shafted a bit) and that the overall grade has perhaps become less important to Madden than the individual skill grades. However, they have way more eyes and more information than we could expect to compile (for example, Donny Moore has acknowledged that they pay attention to PFF ratings when making grade updates).

[tino38]

Madden isn't the greatest but it's the best we have right now. I don't think its a real issue considering every single team in all 3 leagues had to follow the same grade levels.

[Ulrich82]

I hesitate to bring this up because it might cause a lot of potential problems, but I'm selfishly motivated by Patrick Willis' retirement.

Should we consider some version of the "Barry Sanders rule" which allows teams to recover some money/cap room if a player fails to fulfill his contract?

For example, the Seahawks reportedly could go after $1.5 million in prorated signing bonus money this year if Lynch had decided to retire instead of play out the last year of his contract. I remember the Falcons eventually recovering some money from Vick which gave them some extra cap space.

The problem is, as I understand it, this requires an arbitrator ruling in the NFL. Players generally have to retire before fulfilling their contract for non-injury issues (it likely all depends on how the guaranteed money in the contract is written). But maybe we should consider allowing teams to recover some portion of money (maybe 1/4 to 1/2) if a player retires with X number of years left on his contract (say 3 or more years still). I also wouldn't want to see this be a tool for players to sign ridiculous contracts for veterans knowing they can wiggle out of them in the end.

My argument in favor of the rule would be that when signing players, we have no way of evaluating their mental state or future plans like an NFL team can. Someone signing Justin Smith last year knew he was probably within the last few years of his career, but there is no reason to expect a guy like WIllis to retire at 30.

[whteshark]

I'm certainly not married to Madden grades, but I don't see any workable alternative.

Having a committee of graders with one person each responsible for certain teams' grades would lead to way too much variation based on who is doing the grading. PFF uses volunteer graders to help them come up with their grades, but these people get some training and the site uses several graders to attempt to average out good/bad graders and possible mistakes. There is just no way to standardize this across a handful of people. I also think that, even though we have plenty of smart people here who love football, scouting/grading is a very particular skill that takes a lot of practice. I just don't think we can expect people to do a good job of this.

Madden grades have their faults. I think the biggest issues are that the grades are tied into game balance (so changes tend to be conservative and I think the non-skill positions always tend to get shafted a bit) and that the overall grade has perhaps become less important to Madden than the individual skill grades. However, they have way more eyes and more information than we could expect to compile (for example, Donny Moore has acknowledged that they pay attention to PFF ratings when making grade updates).

Well said.

Furthermore, I think it would open up a whole can of worms having other GM's set our grades for our teams. These leagues like any other organizations has its cliques; its rivalries; and its arguments. Those issues may not be out in the open but there's some back biting behind the scenes. And we see this come up in trades over and over again: a players worth is in the eye of the beholder.

I would have an issue with other GM's setting the grades for my team. We need an independent resource and while Madden may not be perfect-- especially with non skill positions--it's the best we have right now.

[kevinl]

I agree we are at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing the players. I know 2 instances for me, I signed Jason Worilds at age 26 and he retires. I also traded a 1st round pick for Aaron Hernandez (never a mention of bad off the field behavior) but I lose out. I hope to get something back for JW retiring.